In a prior art method of making toothbrushes, toothbrush handles are first typically formed in an injection molding machine. A common type of handle is made in a two shot mold and has a plastic main body with rubber overmolded on portions of the plastic body to aid in gripability of the handle.
Referring to FIG. 1, after the handles are made they are put into a handle loader 10 at a stapling/finishing machine 12. A hopper at loader 10 will typically contain handles having a number of different colors. For example, all of the handles might have white plastic main bodies, but some of the handles will have red overmolded portions while other handles will have green, blue, yellow or purple overmolded portions. The handles are in a random jumble in the hopper.
Handle loader 10 automatically removes handles from the hopper and introduces the handles into stapling/finishing machine 12 where bristle tufts are stapled to a head of each handle. The bristle tufts are then trimmed and end-rounded in the stapling/finishing machine to complete production of the toothbrush itself.
The finished toothbrushes exit the stapling/finishing machine single file and are moved by a conveyer belt 14 to a tray loader 16. At the tray loader the toothbrushes are placed into trays that each hold a two dimensional array of toothbrushes. These trays are then brought to packaging machines which place the toothbrushes in packaging for shipment to stores.
A problem exists in that the handles are randomly taken by handle loader 10 from the hopper and introduced into stapling/finishing machine 12. This results in a non-uniform color mixture of toothbrushes being produced. For example, three toothbrushes in a row might exit stapling/finishing machine 12 that all have red overmolded rubber portions. This can cause problems because the retailers prefer an even color mixture of toothbrushes. Further, consumers buying club packs which contain a large number of toothbrushes desire an even color mixture so family members can tell their toothbrushes apart. One way of addressing this problem is to manually reorganize the toothbrushes by color, but this is labor intensive and not a desired solution.